Review Roundup: David Robertson Conducting the St. Louis Symphony in John Adam's Tribute

Music Director David Robertson conducted the St. Louis Symphony in a concert performance of John Adams's critically acclaimed oratorio,The Gospel According to the Other Mary, on Friday, March 31 at 7:30 p.m. in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage. The program featured mezzo-sopranos Kelley O'Connor as Mary Magdalene and Michaela Martens as Martha, with tenor Jay Hunter Morris as Lazarus. The cast also includes countertenors Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings, and Nathan Medley, and the St. Louis Symphony Chorus, directed by Amy Kaiser.

Let's see what the critics had to say:

Zachary Woolfe, NY Times: Childlike wonder, parental conviction, a songfulness easy to remember and difficult to forget: The sequence is a reminder that while Mr. Adams is renowned as a wizard of orchestral colors, of pummeling fireworks and glistening stillnesses, he has never really gotten his due as a tunemaker. When he wants to - among dozens of examples, think of the shining final children's chorus of his Nativity oratorio, "El Niño"; the British Dancing Girl's chirpy number in "The Death of Klinghoffer"; Pat Nixon's statuesque aria, "This Is Prophetic," from "Nixon in China" - he can create earworm melodies the equal of Puccini's.

Sarah Bryan Miller, St. Louis Post Dispatch: The best part is the music, which offers some of Adams' most colorful and engaging orchestral writing. It's effectively eerie when Lazarus emerges from the grave, and there's enchanting writing of mysterious light for Erdrich's poem "The Sacraments," beginning "It is spring."

Thomas Phillips,Classical Source: The soloists were terrific, Kelley O'Connor a force of nature, displaying great depth of tone, and also plenty of power. Unlike in El Niño, the trio of countertenors, each superb here, are used almost exclusively as a unit. By lowering one singer's part, Adams makes the group more grounded, to make sense of their role as narrator/Evangelist, rather than portraying heavenly forces, and it was very moving when the three sang in unison.

Iman Lababedi, Rock NYC: If you listen to Bach you can hear the difference between concord and dischords and if you listen to Jay Hunter Morris as Lazarus singing the praise of Jesus, as all living people must, the uplift is as great as possible. Whether you are Christian or not, the lifting forward in praise for the Christ's greatest miracle of all is pure joy, it manages to make you feel how Lazarus might have felt at being brought back to among the living and how Christians feel today, while remaining elsewhere. It is the highlight of the first act, the second act is a terrible sorrow as Christ stays upon the cross till the end, where every hope is rewarded.

Jacob Slattery, Bachtrack.com: The majority of the oratorio's narrative, from Lazarus's tomb to Bethany to Golgotha, is driven by a trio of angelic countertenors (Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings and Nathan Medley) who reside on the harsher side of beautiful. The dark chronicle of events sounded as if it originated from a three-headed monster rather than cherubs on a cloud, but the quality nevertheless heightened the plot's dramatic tension. Adams' chorus members also play integral character roles in the oratorio - a suspicious mob, weeping disciples, etc. - and the St Louis Symphony Chorus, under the direction of Amy Kaiser, gave their full focus in this performance. Their howls, wails, and sobs in Act 2, Scene 3 as Jesus remarks, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me," made for an impassioned, though perhaps formulaically premature, climax.

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